RATON PASS. Warner Brothers, 1951. Dennis Morgan, Patricia Neal, Steve Cochran, Scott Forbes, Dorothy Hart, Basil Ruysdael, Louis Jean Heydt, Roland Winters. Screenplay: Thomas W. Blackcburn based on his own novel. Director: Edwin L. Marin.

   I had hoped for a little more from Raton Pass, a rather mediocre horse opera set in the New Mexico Territory. The standard elements are all there: a hired gunman; a father-son conflict; a culture conflict between Whites and Mexicans; a dispute over who properly owns a ranch. You get the picture.

   Having a female lead portray the film’s primary villain is a bit out of the ordinary, and it adds a little something extra into the mix. But it wasn’t nearly enough to make this early 1950s oater all that memorable. Then again, the film’s cast and in particular, Dennis Morgan, isn’t particularly known for their work in the Western genre.

   The plot: There’s a new lady in town and her good looks belie her nefarious intentions. Her name is Ann (Patricia Neal) and it doesn’t take her long for her to marry ranch owner, Marc Challon (Dennis Morgan). Truth be told, it doesn’t take her too long to do much of anything because before you can blink an eye, it seems, she’s seduced a Chicago financier named Prentice (Scott Forbes) and has wrestled control of the Challon ranch.

   This naturally upsets both Marc and his father, Pierre (Basil Ruysdael), who can’t believe his son won’t shoot Prentice dead there on the spot. A lot of drama ensues as Marc comes up with a scheme to win back control of the range and exact his revenge on Ann who, it should be noted, is still technically his wife.

   But Ann’s not going down without a fight! She’s hired a slimy gunfighter named Cy Van Cleave (Steve Cochran) to make trouble for Marc and his men.

   How will it all turn out? It suffices it to say that melodrama gives way to action sequences that, in turn, give way to tragedy. It’s standard Western fare, all served up with competent, but by no means, outstanding cinematography and direction. There’s also too little natural scenery to be found in Raton Pass, which is a shame given how much it would have counterbalanced the otherwise completely average script.

HEAVEN ONLY KNOWS. United Artists, 1947. Re-released as Montana Mike. Robert Cummings, Brian Donlevy, Marjorie Reynolds, Jorja Curtwright (debut), John Litel, Bill Goodwin, Stuart Irwin, Gerald Mohr, Edgar Kennedy, Lurlene Tuttle, Peter Miles, Glenn Strange. Screenplay: Art Arthur & Rowland Leigh. Adaptation by Ernest Haycox from a story by Aubrey Wisberg. Directed by Alfred S. Rogell.

   Heavenly fantasy dates back a while, but it took a foothold in Hollywood with Here Comes Mr. Jordan, and by the late forties was a genre unto itself with such heavenly(and diabolical) helpers as Claude Rains, Laird Cregar, Henry Travers, Cary Grant, Clifton Webb, and Cecil Kellaway taking a hand in human affairs.

   This time out the angel in question is Robert Cummings, as Michael, who discovers as the film opens that a mistake has been made in the heavenly bookkeeping: Adam “Duke” Byron (Brian Donlevy) has been born without a soul, and thus won’t fulfill his destiny. In fact, he is already two years behind time in marrying Drusilla (Jorja Curtwright), the daughter of a reverend (John Litel), and that union looks unlikely since Duke Byron runs a saloon and gambling hall and is embroiled in a deadly power struggle with his partner in the Glacier, Montana mine, Bill Plummer (Bill Goodwin).

   With that in mind, Michael is dispatched to Earth to correct the problem, and a bigger babe in the woods there never was, save for the fact he is an archangel though without his cloak of immortality and forbidden to use his powers.

   Glacier proves no paradise. The feud between Duke and Plummer means the mines have been shut down for two months and the desperate miners and townsfolk, led by Drusilla, are ready for vigilante justice. Laconic Sheriff Bodine (Stuart Irwin) talks them into waiting as he hopes to play Byron and Plummer off each other until only one of them is left, and things get quickly more complicated when Plummer makes sure Duke thinks Michael is the Kansas City Kid hired to kill him.

   Then there is Duke’s gunslinger, Treason (Gerald Mohr), who doesn’t like the look of Michael one bit, and with good reason, as there is more than a hint of sulfur and brimstone about him. Heaven isn’t the only one interested in Duke Byron (a good running joke has Treason’s match going out whenever Michael is near him).Michael saves Duke from the real Kansas City Kid, and becomes his friend, but his job is only starting.

    Heaven Only Knows is a curious mix of fantasy, religion, comedy, romance, sentimentalism, and traditional Western elements, the latter no doubt given a boost in the screen treatment by veteran Western writer Ernest Haycox (“Last Stage to Lordsburg,” Canyon Passage, The Adventurers). Brian Donlevy plays the familiar role of good bad man (we know he is good because an ill little boy, Skitch, played by Peter Miles, and drunk storytelling Judd, played by Edgar Kennedy, are loyal to him).

   Cummings angel steals the show, by turns naïve, otherworldly, strong, and scheming, finding himself a bit tempted by saloon girl Ginger (Margorie Reynolds) who begins to fall for him.

   Along the way there are ambushes, two rescues from burning buildings, a showdown “Montana” style between Duke and Plummer, a few sermons, a lynching where Duke finally finds his soul, and a three hanky ending designed to leave no eye in the house dry.

   At times a bit preachy, and sometimes corny, I don’t imagine too many of today’s audiences will care for it, but if you like this genre well done, and would like to see Cummings stretch his wings a bit (sorry) Heaven Only Knows is an odd semi-lost film well worth finding, and easily the most unusual of a genre that still pops up on big and small screens today.

JANE GOT A GUN. 1821 Pictures / The Weinstein Company, 2016. Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Ewan McGregor, Noah Emmerich. Director: Gavin O’Connor.

   Some people blame the lack of success of this recent western movie epic — its first weekend’s gross was a paltry $865,572 with a per theater average of $691 — on the problems in production: too many last minute changes in the cast and crew, including the director. Others have suggested that modern day audiences aren’t able to handle sophisticated story-telling devices, such as the extended use of flashbacks in revealing the history of the characters gradually and only in bits and pieces.

   Or maybe westerns have fallen out of favor with movie-going audiences in general, with only a few exceptions making any noise at the box office. Lots of reasons, in other words, but personally, I enjoyed this one.

   Which tells the life story of Jane Hammond (Natalie Portman), whose husband Bill (Noah Emmerich) comes home to their New Mexico ranch one afternoon badly wounded and telling Jane that the Bishop gang is coming. Leaving their young daughter with a neighboring family, Jane goes to Dan Frost, another neighbor (Joel Edgerton), for help. He refuses, but it is clear that there is a history between the two.

   And what that history is is where the flashbacks come in, and the whole purpose of the movie — to tell us one of hundreds of similar stories of the real Old West, a time and place that was often brutal and uncaring. This is not as much a story of a woman’s quest for revenge (as the title might suggest) as it is one of a woman making some tough choices in life and then having to live with them as life goes on.

   The photography is often strikingly beautiful, and that of course includes Natalie Portman, who stands out and steals every scene she is in. Of course we the viewer also realize that she is more beautiful than any other women in the real Old West ever was, but instinctively we also place such thoughts into a category called the magic of movie-making.

   The movie is rated R for the occasional horrific scenes of violence, making the (Spoiler Alert) the happy ending a bit too saccharine and therefore out of place in comparison, but once again, speaking personally, I didn’t mind at all.

RIDE A CROOKED TRAIL. Universal, 1958. Audie Murphy, Gia Scala, Walter Matthau, Henry Silva. Written by Borden Chase. Directed by Jesse Hibbs.

   Someone at Universal figured out how to make a decent Audie Murphy Western: hire a strong character actor (such as Barry Sullivan, Dan Duryea…) a good writer (such as Clair Huffaker, Burt Kennedy…) and build the movie around the character actor, with Audie moving the plot along.

   Ride a Crooked Trail offers the formula at its best, with Walter Matthau as a shotgun-totin’ judge and a script by Borden Chase, who penned classics like Red River and Winchester 73. And if this isn’t exactly his best work, it still ain’t bad.

   Audie sort of stumbles into the proceedings as an outlaw on the run who picks up a dead sheriff’s horse and is mistaken for the lawman when he rides into Matthau’s town. Forced to adopt the false identity, he finds himself unwillingly adopted by the boozy old judge, but things get complicated when an ex-girlfriend (Gia Scala) comes along and ends up posing as his wife… to be followed in turn by nasty Henry Silva, the current man in her life and head of an outlaw gang with eyes on the local bank.

   It’s all very pat, fast-moving and family-oriented. Henry Silva is convincingly nasty, in a Jack Palance kind of way as the bad guy, though there isn’t really much for him to do. But it’s fun watching Matthau ham it up as the old reprobate judge, and the whole thing is done up in that lush Technicolor used by Universal in those days. In short, easy to watch and easy to forget.

ONLY THE VALIANT. Warner Brothers, 1951. Gregory Peck, Barbara Payton, Ward Bond, Gig Young, Lon Chaney, Neville Brand, Jeff Corey, Warner Anderson. Based on the novel by Charles Marquis Warren. Director: Gordon Douglas.

   For a movie that, truth be told, isn’t structurally all that sound, Only the Valiant remains overall quite entertaining. Adapted from the eponymous 1943 novel by Charles Marquis Warren, the movie, while far better than many other Westerns released in the same era, suffers from the same ailment that afflicts far too many Westerns based on novels: namely, it tries to do too much.

   Rather than condense the backstories and numerous subplots, the film keeps them in, but in such an abbreviated manner that they all become muddled, leaving the viewer to wonder exactly what is motivating different characters.

   Gregory Peck, who apparently later considered Only the Valiant to have been his least favorite film project, portrays Captain Richard Lance, a hard-nosed U.S. Army Cavalry officer posted in the New Mexico Territory. And with New Mexico comes Apache warriors ready to fight the newly arrived White settlers. After Capt. Lance and his men capture Apache leader, Tucsos (Michael Ansara) at an Army fort decimated by Apache violence, a debate erupts as to what to do with the captive. Lance, known for being by the book, rejects the suggestion that they should kill Tucsos outright.

   This decision sets in motion a series of events that leads Capt. Lance and a handpicked crew of misfits from within the ranks back to the destroyed Army fort. There, the men will make a final stand both against the Apaches and themselves. In the course of their suicide mission, some men will all but crack under the pressure. Others will lash out against the hated Capt. Lance. Sergeant Ben Murdock (Neville Brand), for instance, loathes Lance for denying him a promotion.

   On the other hand, Trooper Kebussyan (Lon Chaney), a soldier of Arab descent, loathes Lance for reasons never satisfactorily explained. The same could be said for Trooper Rutledge (Warner Anderson) and Trooper Saxton (Terry Kilburn), both whom seem to want to kill Capt. Lance. But the backstories why are so condensed that it leaves the viewer a bit puzzled as to what Lance has done to earn so much enmity.

   Muddying the waters even more is the fact that Only the Valiant does not do a particularly good job in introducing other important characters to the audience. Case in point is Captain Eversham (Hugh Sanders), father of Lance’s love interest, Cathy Eversham (Barbara Payton). One again suspects that the movie leaves out important details found in the book, a work that I admittedly have not had the chance to read.

   Despite these flaws, however, Only the Valiant ends up being a perfectly watchable movie. Ironically, a lot of this stems from the fact that one often doesn’t have a clear idea of what direction the plot is going to go. Is it going to be a film about a doomed romantic relationship on an Army outpost, a movie about men bonding in the heat of battle, or something completely different?

   In retrospect, I actually enjoyed watching the movie as the story unfolded more than I find myself appreciating it as a final product. Make of that what you will.

THE GUN THAT WON THE WEST. Columbia Pictures, 1955. Dennis Morgan, Paula Raymond, Richard Denning, Chris O’Brien, Robert Bice. Director: William Castle.

   The gun may have won the West, but the movie quickly lost my interest.

   I won’t go so far as to say that the William Castle’s The Gun That Won The West is the worst Western I’ve ever seen, but it’s probably the most lackluster and altogether uninspiring. The characters are poorly drawn, there’s a fair amount of what appears to be stock footage of marauding Sioux on horseback, the fight scenes are poorly choreographed, and the ending is … well, let’s just say the ending leaves you wondering what the point of it all was.

   Here’s the thing. It didn’t need to be this way. Sure, Castle is known more for his later horror/schlock films, but he was certainly capable of competently directing a slightly quirky B-Western such as Conquest of Cochise that I reviewed here. As for Dennis Morgan, he’s not the best actor ever cast in Westerns, but he was more than competent in the surprisingly enjoyable Cheyenne, which I reviewed here.

   But in this tired affair, the real star of the film was the shiny and new Springfield rifle that allowed the film’s protagonist and his allies to defeat the Sioux. Trust me when say that unless you are a William Castle completest, there’s no reason to go out of your way to watch this forgettable matinee Western.

WILL C. BROWN – The Border Jumpers. E. P. Dutton, hardcover, 1955. Dell #878, paperback, 1956. Reprinted as Man of the West, Dell #986, paperback, 1958.

MAN OF THE WEST. United Artists, 1958. Gary Cooper, Julie London, Lee J. Cobb, Arthur O’Connell, Jack Lord, John Dehner, Royal Dano, Robert Wilke. Screenplay by Reginald Rose, based on the novel The Border Jumpers, by Will C. Brown. Directed by Anthony Mann.

   Lincoln Jones, on an uncomfortable train journey from Crosscut to Fort Worth, finds himself beset by Beasley and Billie: a tin-horn gambler and a saloon chanteuse trying to separate him from $600 the citizens of his small town have scraped together for him to hire a schoolteacher. But that’s the least of his worries as the train is robbed at a wood stop, speeds off, and he finds himself abandoned in the wilderness with the two con artists.

   Even that pales, however, when it develops that the train robbers, still close by, are the remains of an outlaw clan run by the notorious killer Dock Tobin — Linc’s uncle.

   We quickly find that Linc was raised by his Uncle Dock; raised to be a killer like the rest of the family, until the day he escaped and started making what’s known in Westerns as a decent life for himself. That life is shattered now as the demented (and still very lethal) old man takes him back into the fold, despite his glowering cousins Claude and Coaley, who would as soon kill Linc and Beasley (“I say we open ‘em up and leave ‘em here.”) and indulge themselves with Billie.

   It’s a situation rife with tension and dramatic potential, and author Brown develops it with the speed and precision of an able pulp-writer, fleshing out characters and background colorfully and adding bits of unexpected excitement to keep us off-balance — there are two brutal and unsettling strip-tease scenes — until he wraps the thing up a bit too patly. But it’s even more fascinating to see how director Anthony Mann and screenwriter Reginald Rose turned it into a piece of Pure Cinema.

   Gary Cooper brings his graceful authority to the role of Linc, along with a certain aging melancholy perfectly suited to the situation. He’s matched evenly with Julie London, projecting that sexy disenchantment she could do so well. Surrounded by murderous degenerates, she shoots them a look that seems to take it as just another bad hand in a crooked game. Arthur O’Connell, on the other hand, is delightful as a scrabbling, scheming angler, frightened and desperate, his agitation pitched perfectly against Ms. London’s weary composure.

   Among the bad guys, Lee J. Cobb has the showiest part as mad Dock Tobin, but I prefer the typecast meanness of Robert Wilke, Royal Dano’s off-beat lunatic and Jack Lord’s wolfish juvenile delinquent. Best of all though is John Dehner as Claude, the smartest and most dangerous member of the clan. There’s a really fine scene where Linc and Claude have a quiet talk and Coop tries to make him see the insanity of living like this while Dehner insists on loving and protecting the crazy old man. It’s a moving and sensitive moment (much like the one between Robert Ryan and Terrence Stamp in Billy Budd a few years later), and it lends dramatic weight to the shoot-out when the characters have to confront each other.

   Said shoot-out is a high point in the work of a director who excelled in complex action scenes, as the characters maneuver through a ghost town, running, jumping and throwing shots back and forth as they jockey for position until, weary and near death, they pause for a final sad exchange before finishing it off.

   This confrontation is set in a ghost town, the perfect visual metaphor for the waste and emptiness confronting our hero. And where the book wraps things neatly, the movie leaves a lot of emotional loose ends to dangle intriguingly in the viewer’s mind. Indeed, as the two survivors make their way to the fade-out through a bleak landscape, one recalls the tension, brutality and emotional rawness of this thing and asks, “What the hell just happened?”

   What happened was a great movie.

SABATA. Produzioni Europee Associati, Italy, 1969, as Ehi amico… c’è Saba Hai chiuso! United Artists, US, 1970 (dubbed). Lee Van Cleef, William Berger, Ignazio Spalla, Aldo Canti, Pedro Sanchez, Nick Jordan, Franco Ressel, Anthony Gradwell, Linda Verasta. Director: Gianfranco Parolini.

   Don’t watch Sabata, the first of the Sabata Trilogy, for the plot. Because, truth be told, the plot is neither particularly interesting, nor is it central to the movie. Holding this enjoyably silly movie together are the following three key ingredients: Lee Van Cleef’s role as the title character; the Spaghetti Western visual aesthetic replete with wild zoom-ins; and, of course, distinct music that would be completely out of place anywhere but a late 1960s Italian western.

   Who is Sabata? He’s first and foremost a character portrayed by Lee Van Cleef. He’s also a drifter, gunfighter, friend, schemer, and vigilante who, one day, rides into a small Texas town. Lo and behold, the town just happens to experience a bank robbery soon upon Sabata’s arrival. He’s not responsible for the crime, however. The culprits are a ragtag group of outlaws and acrobats (just go with it). Sabata decides that he’s going to take it upon himself to bring the perpetrators to justice; well, his brand of justice anyway.

   After receiving a reward for retrieving the loot and returning it to its proper owners, Sabata soon discovers that the elite townsfolk are the ones really behind the crime. What’s a man like Sabata to do? Blackmail them, of course. This leads Sabata into an unlikely partnership with a drunken war veteran named Carrincha (Ignazio Spalla) and a mute Indian acrobat named Alley Cat (Aldo Canti). These two misfits become not just his partners, but also his hangout buddies. It also leads him headlong into a confrontation with a former associate, the mysterious banjo player named . . . Banjo (William Berger). He’s a gunfighter just like Sabata and he’s no pushover. So you know it’s going to be a fight to the finish.

   As I mentioned before, the plot is really secondary to the film’s aesthetic. If you don’t care for Spaghetti Westerns, Sabata isn’t going to work for you. If you do like them, you may agree with me that this is actually nifty little film that doesn’t require much from the viewer. What it lacks in coherence it more than makes up for in slightly off kilter visuals and well choreographed gunfights, all set to a remarkably effective soundtrack that really propels this buddy movie forward.

SHOTGUN. Allied Artists, 1955. Sterling Hayden, Yvonne De Carlo, Zachary Scott, Guy Prescott. Screenplay: Clark E. Reynolds & Rory Calhoun. Director: Lesley Selander.

   When I recently discovered a DVD copy of Shotgun at a used record store, my first thought was: count me in! After all, I’m a fan of Sterling Hayden and definitely appreciate Zachary Scott’s presence in Westerns, particularly those where he portrays a slimy, half-good, half-bad character. Plus with Yvonne De Carlo as the female lead, I thought I’d stumbled upon a minor gem that I hadn’t heard of before.

   Alas, it was not to be. Shotgun is, in many respects, a complete misfire. It’s not that the movie doesn’t have some solid acting, and it’s not as if the script is a total disaster. It’s just that the film really has no particular cinematic presence, aside from being just another mid-1950s genre movie with mid-level star power. Simply put, there’s nothing new under western skies in this movie that you haven’t seen before.

   Hayden portrays the laconic Clay Harden, outlaw-turned-lawman. After his the shotgun-wielding outlaw named Ben Thompson (Guy Prescott) mows down his friend and colleague, Harden takes it upon himself to exact bloody revenge. He sets out, shotgun in hand, to Apache Territory to find Thompson.

   Along the way, he encounters the enigmatic but sexy wildcat Abby (De Carlo) and bounty hunter Reb (Scott), a man he knows from his past. There is romance, Apaches on the warpath, gun running, and a final duel. Some of it’s worth watching, but a lot of it feels like it’s all by rote and checking off boxes. Western tropes come flying like a shotgun blast in this one.

HANNIE CAULDER. Tigon British Film Productions, UK, 1971. Paramount Pictures, US, 1972. Raquel Welch, Robert Culp, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, Strother Martin, Christopher Lee, Diana Dors. Director: Burt Kennedy.

   Hannie Caulder is the type of movie that could only have been made in the 1970s, a time of comparably anarchic freedom for directors, producers, and screenwriters. Take a few well known characters actors and cast them as buffoonish rapists, add a strong willed feminist protagonist to be portrayed by a leading sex symbol, and then cast Robert Culp and Christopher Lee as a bounty hunter and a gunsmith, respectively, and you’ve got yourself a Western cult classic in the making.

   But wait, there’s more. While a Spaghetti Western aesthetic, replete with notably fake red blood, gives the film a gritty edge, a mysterious character, a gunslinger dressed from head to toe in black, adds a quasi-mystical element to the proceedings.

   Raquel Welch stars as the film’s title character, a woman who is savagely raped and beaten by three outlaw brothers portrayed by Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, and Strother Martin. After that experience, Hannie Caulder sets out on a course of revenge against the men who attacked her and murdered her husband.

   Soon enough, she comes under the tutelage of bounty hunter Thomas Luther Price (Culp), a solitary man who – not surprisingly – begins to develop romantic feelings toward Hannie. Price is a man torn. On the one hand, he’s willing to teach Hannie the art of gun fighting; on the other, he doesn’t want Hannie to become a killer like he is.

   All told, Hannie Caulder is a solid revenge Western. Look for Christopher Lee in his portrayal of Bailey, a boutique gunsmith camped out in Mexico. The interactions between his character and Price and Hannie Caulder are among the best in this truly unique Burt Kennedy film. It may not be among the best Westerns ever filmed, but it’s certainly a spunky little 1970s meditation on violence that isn’t easily forgotten.